or… Tales of a 30 year old Nothing.

Mornings with Children | Day 16

DAY 16

EVENT 1 – BOY

There’s this old myth in my wife’s family that the homestead my mother-in-law lives on is haunted. It’s been in the family for years and years and years and lies out in the middle of nowhere amidst corn fields and open sky; basically the perfect place for a haunted house to exist. Now, whether you believe in ghosts or not, it doesn’t matter. When someone tells you that a place is haunted and that they’ve seen ghosts walking around, you have a tendency to get a little nervous when they ask you to go upstairs and set up your babies’ cribs all by yourself at night.

Yes, I’ve seen horror movies start like this.

I shuffle up the cramped, narrow staircase, trying to keep my breathing regulated. I thought I heard somewhere that ghosts could tell when you were afraid… or maybe that was dogs… or rattlesnakes. I can’t remember.

I say one of those really ridiculous prayers that we say to ourselves whenever we think we’re about to be terrorized by some malicious poltergeist. In my head I’m like, “Dear God, please cloak your divine sanctity bubble over me and protect me from the previously deceased occupants of this home, who are obviously horrible, horrible ghosts that want to do me harm. Yes, I know I’ve never met them but I’ve never heard anything good about ghosts… except that Casper character and I think he was a cartoon and wasn’t based in real life. In your name I pray, amen.”

Okay, cool. I got my sanctity bubble on. I’ve got the cribs set-up (you have a tendency to tear through any task at hand when you think you might be possessed) and I’m on my way back to the stairs when suddenly, and I swear to you up and down, this two foot tall demon-troll cloaked all in black suddenly leaps out at me from the bathroom at the end of the hall and I stumble oh dear Lord SANCTITY BUBBLE!!!!

And then the demon troll cloaked in his black cloak of evil says, “Daddy!”

It takes my brain a few moments to process what my eyes are seeing and it takes even longer for my heart to crawl back down out of my throat but the demon is just my son and his black cloak is just his wedding tux.

Creeper!

EVENT 2 – GIRL

Last night both of our children had their very first ever sleepover at Grandma June’s house and it was so exciting and we were getting them all ready for bed when… we realized we’d forgotten their pajamas.

Parents of the year strike again!! On next week’s episode we leave the kids outside and accidentally take the dogs to church!

My mother-in-law is th-th-thrifty as all get out so she just goes and grabs one of her mother’s 10,000 thread count Chinese silk sleeping shirts and puts it on Quinn. The fabric is a soft baby blue with a shimmering pink collar and great big buttons running down the front. This is not the first thing you’ll notice about the shirt though. The first thing you’ll notice is that my daughter looks like a mudblood preparing to attend Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardy (I love you, Harry Potter). The shirt is draped down to her ankles, dangling magically off of her tiny frame, the sleeves making those great big Dumbledorean hallows for her tiny pink hands to just peek out of.

I look around the house trying to find a wand but two concerns quickly cross my mind, in this order. 1.) What if she pokes her eye out with her Harry Potter wand (I love you, Harry Potter) and then 2.) What if I try to put her to bed and she suddenly screams, “AVADA KEDAVRA!” at me?